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March 29, 2024, 02:43:50 PM

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Sixth series of Line Of Duty on BBC 21st March

Started by Fambo Number Mive, February 27, 2021, 10:19:18 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Jockice

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on May 03, 2021, 07:43:41 AM
Nothing will ever top the Mad Men ending, no. It's absolutely perfect. Still makes me laugh.
=
Indeed. Sometimes it also makes me cry. Because it is so absolutely perfect. Like John Peel said about Teenage Kicks, there's nothing you could add to it or take away from it that would make it any better. I actually suspect the entire seven-series (not sodding season) show was planned just so they could end it like that.

New page I'd like to teach the world to shut the fuck up.

I think there was a good ending there, but it was hidden behind dreadful dialogue, acting and pacing which - like I said after the previous episode - turned enjoyable nonsense into just nonsense.

They gave what turned into a BBC One show a BBC Two ending. Just a shame it was undermined by all of the above.

BeardFaceMan

If you're talking police dramas that stick the landing, you can't beat The Shield. But fucking hell, this series and ending of LoD has actually put me off going back and rewatching the earlier series, and it's even put me off Mercurio projects in the future. As has been pointed out, not just for the plotting, but for the terrible way the plot was written and delivered, series 6 was some of the hackiest shite I've seen.

elliszeroed

If Buckells was the guy on the other side of the conversations on the laptop in Season 5, why did Hargreaves show up to meet Corbett?

BeardFaceMan

That's one of the things that's put me off doing a rewatch, there are going to be so many moments that don't make sense with Buckells as H. Theres no way you can tell me this was Mercurios plan from the start, I'd be suprised if this was is plan when he started writing series 6.

bgmnts

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on May 03, 2021, 01:35:45 AM
I do like the fact that millions of viewers just watched a show on BBC One in which the blatant message was: "People such as Boris Johnson are a corrupt bunch of useless cunts who will never be held to account because the system is geared in their favour."

I just wish old Jed had managed to get that point across while also bothering to write a decent series.

Yeah but that point will be lost on most proles watching it.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: Wayman C. McCreery on May 03, 2021, 08:21:34 AM
I think there was a good ending there, but it was hidden behind dreadful dialogue, acting and pacing which - like I said after the previous episode - turned enjoyable nonsense into just nonsense.

They gave what turned into a BBC One show a BBC Two ending. Just a shame it was undermined by all of the above.

BBC two had all the best shows. Subversive wacko stuff.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: BeardFaceMan on May 03, 2021, 08:51:51 AM
If you're talking police dramas that stick the landing, you can't beat The Shield. But fucking hell, this series and ending of LoD has actually put me off going back and rewatching the earlier series, and it's even put me off Mercurio projects in the future. As has been pointed out, not just for the plotting, but for the terrible way the plot was written and delivered, series 6 was some of the hackiest shite I've seen.

Chasing the smug, infantile, chattering classes.

BeardFaceMan

Quote from: BlodwynPig on May 03, 2021, 01:00:06 PM
Chasing the smug, infantile, chattering classes.

Yeah, pretty much what happens when a BBC1 show accidentally becomes popular, they run it into the fucking ground. Line of Duty is the first BBC1 drama I've watched for a long time and I now remember why.

BlodwynPig

You'll just have to make do with Call the Midwife now. The BBC is turgid. Sinking neath its warped view of risqué but nice entertainment.

JesusAndYourBush

I literally fell asleep for 20-30 mins in the middle of that.   No joke. A combination of having a big meal and being nice and warm and you just lean back in your seat and  zzzzzzzz.  Sortof semiconsciously waking up, hearing 'no comment', then going back to sleep again.  What I saw was disappointing.  Reading back the last few pages I don't think I missed anything vital!  A damp squib.

EOLAN

Buckles wasn't a great line term plan by Mercurio. Basically admitted in Obsessed with LOD podcast that he chose him quite late as the sequel to Orson Welles (the Fourth man).
This whole season did seem lacking in not having a strong enough independent central storyline and being too tied in to past seasons. Always felt whoever the big reveal was going to be was just at the whim of Mercurio and not some great plotted out reveal.

ersatz99

Noticed H had a company called Holte End Holdings which probably means he's an Aston Villa fan who are usually known as Villans.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: ersatz99 on May 03, 2021, 03:39:49 PM
Noticed H had a company called Holte End Holdings which probably means he's an Aston Villa fan who are usually known as Villans.

Heh!

Fambo Number Mive

I presume this is the last series, what with
Spoiler alert
Ted having confessed his misdeeds to Kate, Steve and Carmichael
[close]
and the
Spoiler alert
Fourth Man being located
[close]
.

Just can't buy
Spoiler alert
Buckles as the Fourth Man
[close]
. A corrupt officer, sure, but not the
Spoiler alert
Fourth Man
[close]
. Seems more likely someone else is getting him to take the fall for it.

BlodwynPig

There was no Fourth Man...he was just some low level rat inside the force passing on information. The OCGs were legion not a singular endeavour.


holyzombiejesus

That CGI lift bit at the end was absolutely hysterical. There was another good bit where Jo was stood outside her farmhouse and the dog appearing behind her made her look like she'd shat herself.

I liked the general message behind it but to take 7 hours to get there was pretty bad. Only real bit of tension came at the end of the 5th episode and even then it was obvious that ThisIsEngland woman wouldn't get killed.

chveik


Head Gardener


gib

Quote from: Pink Gregory on May 03, 2021, 05:56:53 PM
https://www.logically.ai/articles/line-of-duty-fantasy-accountability

Article for youse

Quote(some fans have noted, incidentally, that AC-12 works as a numerological cipher for ACAB)

can't believe none of us spotted that

studpuppet

Quote from: Fambo Number Mive on May 03, 2021, 04:37:21 PM
I presume this is the last series...

I didn't read this series as being the last one for a few reasons:

1. Most obvious: the BBC wouldn't kill a cash cow that easily, even if the writer didn't want to continue. Fuck me, Silent Witness has done 23 series.

2. I don't think they'd bother paying Jimmy Nesbitt just for image rights. He's very obviously been kept off-screen to enable using him later on.

3. Carmichael's lack of reaction or response to Ted's confession. I read read her as being a basically straight copper who, up until the end of the last episode of this series has believed her superiors, but possibly, just possibly has been given pause for thought. There was no 'Superintendent Ted Hastings retired from his role as head of AC-12 with full honours' subtitle at the end as there surely should be if he was on his way out?

4. Every 'guest' star so far has died (Thandiwe Newton being the exception, but if I recall her story wasn't OCG-linked and she was banged up anyway). Kelly MacDonald is out in the big wide world, ripe for kidnap/torture/execution which would show Carmicahel that that corruption runs deep enough to allow a killer to find Kelly's new address.

I you ask me, this one felt like the necessary lull before a final two more series. If LoD was a single six-part series, this would have been Episode 4.

BlodwynPig

2. He's dead
3. Ted has launched an appeal, which does leave the back door open, but that is a cowards move
4. That would be the shittest plot ever. That end scene looked final and to bring her back would fanfic.

BeardFaceMan

Quote from: BlodwynPig on May 04, 2021, 08:22:05 AM
4. That would be the shittest plot ever. That end scene looked final and to bring her back would fanfic.

Would make sense though, series 6 was very shit and basically fanfic written by a fan who got into the show via Facebook memes.

BlodwynPig

I don't disagree with the sentiment, just that its unlikely that things would be better unless Mercurio (and the BEEB SUITS(!) have a rethink, restructuring and hire the ghost of Robert Banks Stewart to write and produce the new series).

Fambo Number Mive

Quote from: Pink Gregory on May 03, 2021, 05:56:53 PM
https://www.logically.ai/articles/line-of-duty-fantasy-accountability

Article for youse

Be interesting to know what the writer of that would make of Between the Lines. Two very different ways of looking at police corruption, not sure which one is better.

BeardFaceMan

Quote from: BlodwynPig on May 04, 2021, 08:52:32 AM
I don't disagree with the sentiment, just that its unlikely that things would be better unless Mercurio (and the BEEB SUITS(!) have a rethink, restructuring and hire the ghost of Robert Banks Stewart to write and produce the new series).

Oh I agree, I'm not saying it would make the show better, just that it would make sense because of the shitshow that it has become.

Hat FM

has mercurio ever explained why kate and steve call each other 'mate' so much?
i thought the set piece when kate was in transit was a great scene. the ending was what i expected really. there is no ending. this can't be solved etc.

Sorry Monkeys

If I recall correctly, there was some sexual tension between them in one of the series. I expect it's there to kill that plotline stone dead.

Their conversations are so awkward, I love it. Especially like it when they discuss sensitive police business in the middle of an echoey carpark.

studpuppet

Quote from: BlodwynPig on May 04, 2021, 08:22:05 AM
2. He's dead

Yeah, but is he though? Is he? Who identified the bodies? Maybe someone from the *checks notes* possibly institutionally corrupt police?

Quote3. Ted has launched an appeal, which does leave the back door open, but that is a cowards move

I don't think he'll still be serving in the next series, but they'll have lots of lovely Arnott/Fleming chats in his leafy back garden. I still think he's holding a secret that no one's aware of yet. Have we had a Ted Hastings interviewee scene yet? Can't remember but if we have then we can cope with another.

Quote4. That would be the shittest plot ever. That end scene looked final and to bring her back would fanfic.

I don't think I said anything about plot quality - that's one thing we're all agreed on here; it's enjoyable guff at best.


Here's how I'd continue/finish it fanfic-style:

Series 7: flashback of the Stephen Lawrence Christopher murder, showing lots of faces we know already and wee Jimmy Nesbitt in his wee Jimmy Krankie wig. Shows how the corruption gets embedded in various different places, and sets us up for...

Series 8: an episode for each of the corrupt characters showing their path through the force to the beginning of the series they were the subject of, leading to the final episode where Hastings, Osbourne or Carmichael are unmasked. Won't be wee Jimmy Nesbitt, too lowly.